Sunday, July 16, 2006

Time : 8:06 amPlace : Seaqueen hotel , calicutA more precise place : On my bed .State of mind : Just got up . Any use of words with violent , sexual or abusive connotations is due to a lack of breakfast and a shoulder pain resulting from the awkward position I slept in .

First of all , I am not sad . I have a decent career taking off , a family I love , friends I love, and a security guard I am beginning to love ( Things a lonely existence does to me ) . So it would take a fully loaded nuclear attack and a couple of Himesh Reshammiya's CDs to make me feel sad . On a related note , I just saw the video of "teri yaad na aye" from Himesh on MTV . The guy is crying lakes in the video . I had this urge to actually reach into the screen , wipe his face with a tissue and say "Na munna na , sab theek ho jayega ."

But even though I am not sad , I have a little thought nibbling on me this morning . The more I live , the more I realise two things . First , I still don't have a 'purpose' in my life . And second , now that I have lived some more , I have lesser time to find that purpose .It is like 5 years back I was "Chill yar . I am only 20 . Only Buddha found a purpose in life at that age." But Now I am like "Umm . I am almost 25 . And I think I will find a bigger meaning in life right after a little nap. "

Sure , I have phases of 'being driven' in my life . Like I wake up and say 'Right . Today I will call the Airtel Customer care people and tell them they should be looting banks in ski masks and not calling themselves a telecom service provider for all the scary things they are doing to my connection'.So little purposes about getting my cell connection up , analysing Gold Flake sales in north kerala , ironing my shirt for the next day and such micro sized things dot my day .But there is nothing which connects all these dots and makes me say " Oh right . Now all the things that seemed stupid and mundane to me make sense".I don't have a purpose which unites all the things I do and drives me and makes me say "Oh yeah , so this is what it was all about". In fact , that's the problem bugging me right now . I don't know what's it all about .Maybe there isn't supposed to be a purpose , a bigger meaning in life . Just live , have fun , eat good chinese food , watch movies , and of course , there is the security guard .

Starting a Sunday with such things which would beat a well with their depth is not a great idea . I can almost imagine Lord Buddha sitting up there on a cloud and shaking his head and telling me "Take it easy kid . It's Sunday after all . You know what that means for a working chap ? So gulp some sandwiches and a hot coffee and flip on FTV and everything will make sense ."

And I want to buy a camera . To live through this place without clicking the beach and all the churches and the typical umbrella-newspaper-lungi keralite would be a sin as big as painting a moustache on Thackerey's wife's face . And I don't have a good knowledge of music . I confuse a flute with a baton and you need a gun to make me sit through a classical music recital . But I like this song called 'Mehfuz' by Euphoria . I have lumps in my throat as big as an ostrich's eggs whenever I listen to its lines . And a couple of days back , I got a call .

But the mallu caller hasn't understood this since then . He has called me some seven times over the last two days . So now our conversation goes like this

T.O.G : ~ Malayalam ~

Me : Krissh dekh lee bhai ?

T.O.G : ~Malayalam ~

Me : Zidane to pagal hain .

T.O.G : ~ Malayalam ~

Me : Ha Ha ! Well said .

I don't know why this guy still calls me . He will have to wait till I finish my "Learn malayalam in 30 days " book . It's been almost two months I've been reading it .

All the kids please get up and clap because my breakfast is finally here . And nothing gets in between a hungry munnu and a hot breakfast . So now yours truly will step back into his big bad mallu world . Let's pacify the rats in my tummy now . As for the purpose of life ...umm....pehle kha leta hoon !

Thursday, July 13, 2006

Time : 5:28 pmDate : 12th JulyPlace : A beach in CalicutWritten on : Scrawled on the back of the rate list of ITC cigarette brands. Copied to the blog later .

Till about half an hour back , the most water in one place I had seen was a bathtub maybe .Now an entire sea spreads out before me . The waves rise up , roll towards me while spilling foam and froth , then thin out gradually till begin their retreat some seven feet away from where I sit . The hotel I am staying stands just across the road . The hotel is called 'seaqueen hotel' . It sounds more like some shady dance bar in downtown mumbai , sandwiched between blue moon hotel and dark pleasure hotel .But it's a completely under 18 , sushma swaraj approved hotel .

One thing which makes me stand out as an open fly is the fact that I am alone .Everybody is with someone on this beach . I see a lungi clad grandfather sitting on a big stone and reading a book while his grandkids are trying to put together something using wet sand . I hope they are not trying to make a castle , because what's coming up looks like a sandy version of a headless adnam sami . Basically a big sphere of sand .

A young couple sits some distance away . They fling some kind of 'chana' to a gang of crows . I didn't know there were crows on beach too . I thought they were found only on dead dogs on the highway and open dustbins in Delhi . The expression on the couple's faces is like they are going to the court to sign the divorce papers as soon as the feeding ends .I should have guessed that without the facial expressions too . A couple needs to be ten minutes away from a divorce to find 'feeding crows' the most cool thing they can do on a beach .

I wonder why the guys selling peanuts and ice creams are approaching me with alarming frequency . Maybe some kind of alone-guy-on-beach-must-be-depressed-will-eat-ice cream-to-lift-mood theory is at play in their heads.

It's beginning to rain now . People are opening their umbrellas and beginning to stand up to leave . I think I can sit some more . Atleast something good about not having ma around . She would have yelled "Beemar ho jayega ! Andar aa !" .

A gang of young guys seem to be fresh out a krissh show here . They are too far out in the sea .One big wave and their names are getting longer by a word called late .As it is , it would take sacrificing a huge blob of self dignity to give a mouth to mouth to any of them . Except the one in the electric blue vest maybe . People are looking at me strangely . A young man sitting all alone on beach sand writing on a piece of paper . I don't blame them if they think I am writing a suicide note before I jump head first in the waves .

And of course , how can there be a beach without the young , pink and rosy coochie coochie couples . But they are pretty censored here in Kerala . The movies taught me that at any beach , the couples were either kissing or trying to find a big rock to kiss behind it . But the couples here are just holding hands , looking at the waves , smiling . A very 1970-ish elegant and controlled sense of romance .

I guess I should get up now . Big drops of water fall with a plop on this sheet of paper . And I am not high on Zingaro Beer .I guess it was just a need to talk to someone which got me writing these unbelievably pointless lines . And yeah , in case you know anybody here in calicut and think he/she would want a little company , please mail me . Else I am getting a dog . I would prefer walking a dog on the beach rather than writing such stuff .